Biography:Anyone who has visited Venice will be familiar with the Ca' Foscari, one of the most beautiful (and conspicuous) Gothic palaces on the Grand Canal. After two centuries or so of decline (since it was abandoned by the Foscari family at the time of Napoleon), it has recently been restored and now houses part of the University of Venice, writes Homan Potterton.
It was built in the 1450s by the doge (the chief magistrate of Venice), Francesco Foscari, who bought the choice site when the government (of which he was head) decided to sell it. Conflict of interest was not something Foscari, who had been doge for more than 30 years, particularly minded about; nor, as he himself lived in the Palazzo Ducale, did he need a sumptuous new palace. But, being about 80 at the time, he was conscious of the need to provide a suitably impressive "seat" for his descendants. (Some of those descendants, the brothers Niccolò and Alvise Foscari, were to create an even more impressive monument a century later when Palladio designed his most exquisite villa for them, La Malcontenta.)
Ironically, it is on account of one of the doge's descendants, namely his son Jacopo, that the Foscari name is further familiar. This is because father and son were immortalised in Verdi's rarely-performed tragic opera, I Due Foscari, which in turn was based upon a verse-drama composed by Byron when he was living in Venice around 1820.
Why was Byron, and later Verdi, interested in the doge and his son? And what is the drama of their lives that he chose to recount?
It is as an aside that Byron tells us that Foscari's only surviving son, Jacopo, was accused and brought to trial for accepting bribes in return for government appointments through his father; that he had arranged the murder of a high-ranking government official; and that he had later engaged in treasonable correspondence with Venice's arch-enemy, the Duke of Milan. Tortured into confession and sentenced by the Council of Ten to exile, his property confiscated, Jacopo appealed to his father to obtain a pardon for him but the doge, putting aside family feeling, responded that the state's commandments must be obeyed and that Jacopo must "go and obey our country's will". Jacopo died in exile shortly thereafter and the doge, overwhelmed by grief, himself died two days after being forced to resign. The story as told by Byron and later Verdi is true, although their interpretation of events, with Jacopo as an innocent and the doge largely a victim of a vendetta by the Loredan family, was of their own time. It does not take into account the fact that corruption, treachery, and intrigue had become widespread as Foscari's long reign as doge progressed.
Foscari's predecessor, Tommaso Mocenigo, warned the Council of Ten from his deathbed against electing Foscari as doge. This was because Mocenigo was a traditionalist who had maintained Venice's dominance in the Adriatic and expanded its historical trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, whereas it was known that Foscari would aggressively seek to extend Venice's interests on the terraferma. In due course this is what he did by allying himself with the Florentines against the powerful Visconti family of Milan. The result, as Mocenigo predicted, was long years of costly wars, which were an enormous drain on the Venetian exchequer. Expansion on the terraferma gave rise to a variety of jobs and sinecures and the filling of such posts (from among the ranks of the poorer Venetian nobles who supported the doge) provided ample scope for bribery.
FOSCARI, ONE OF a moderately important family, was a member of the Council of Ten and a procurator of St Mark's when he was elected doge, at the age of 50, in 1423. Hardly anything is known of his early life and he first emerges, as a diplomat and soldier, in 1408. Subsequently involved in trade, he contrived at the same time, successfully, to have himself elected to various offices of state.
As a procurator of St Mark's he was trusted as an executor and administrator of personal estates, and this gave him the opportunity to dispense a certain amount of (other people's) largesse. The result was that he soon built up a loyal and extensive political following, so that by the time it came to electing Mocenigo's successor as doge, Foscari was a fairly powerful figure in the city and republic of Venice. As doge, aside from waging wars and demanding higher taxes to pay for them, Foscari sought to enhance the grandeur of the ducal office and emphasise its princely aspect. Strengthening Venice's ties with the Holy Roman Empire, he had himself made a vicar of the empire, followed by a splendid investiture ceremony in Prague (although Foscari did not attend in person). Prestigious visitors were welcomed to Venice with magnificent festivities - the Byzantine emperor, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the future Queen of Cyprus, the Holy Roman emperor - and when Foscari's son elevated the family by marrying Lucrezia Contarini, the wedding was on a royal scale, the doge having raised 5,000 ducats (an enormous sum) to pay for it.
Doge Foscari was also responsible for the creation of some few architectural monuments: the sumptuous Mascoli chapel in St Mark's and the Arco Foscari and Porta della Carta on the Palazzo Ducale - executed as a glorification of Foscari himself. Then there is his tomb, which he himself did not plan, in the church of the Frari.
The life of Doge Foscari, which is the subject of Dennis Romano's book, is an interesting one and it tells us much about the internal politics of Venice and the northern Italian states in the 15th century. It is also, as Byron recognised, a life that had drama, colour, and charisma. But Romano, who is a professor of history and fine arts at Syracuse University, is not Lord Byron, and he has written a book that, although perfectly workmanlike, methodical, and thorough, is extraordinarily dull. Venice's military campaigns plod on and on, the machinations of the Council of Ten are tediously described, and even exciting events such as Jacopo's several trials are rendered less than fascinating. Foscari's character does not come across, and little attempt is made to convey what life in Venice was like at the time. Even the descriptions of architecture - the Ca' Foscari, for example - are perfunctory rather than evocative or expansive. The poorly captioned photographs, of which there are 56, with 11 colour plates, are equally non-communicative.
It would be best to leave Romano at home and stand in front of the Palazzo Foscari oneself and see in one's imagination the mind and determination of a man who, at the age of 80 and disgraced by his only son, created such a glorious conception.
Audio editions of Homan Potterton's memoir, Rathcormick, read by the actor Gerry O'Brien, are published by Isis Publishing this month.
The Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, 1373-1457, By Dennis Romano Yale University Press, 468pp. £25